Surfers Paradise & Byron Bay

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Hello,

We arrived in Surfers Paradise and were picked up and taken to our hostel. On arrival we presented our Travelbugs voucher which entitled us to 1 night free accommodation at this place and the manager informed us that as from that morning no Travelbugs vouchers would be accepted anywhere as they had gone into liquidation. We thought our luck would run out fairly soon as it had been a week since we'd found out and we had got away with it until then. We have been so lucky - we each spent $1,000 with them and luckily had just about come to the end of our trips with them so all in all we barely lost anything - only 2 nights accommodation which were free with the deal we booked anyway and seeing as we got away with 2 free nights in Noosa we ended up even! We were told we were so lucky as loads of travellers had lost thousands of dollars and had turned up for their Fraser Island and Whitsundays trips to be refused and made to pay for the whole lot again. How gutting. We even booked our Greyhound tickets with them but as they had already been validated before they went bust they still stand so phew!!

We decided to move to another hostel closer to town seeing as we had to pay for it now so we headed off and found ourselves in the best hostel yet - Backpackers in Paradise. It was paradise let me tell you!! We had a 4 bed dorm to ourselves with en-suite bathroom! I got so excited I even allowed myself to unpack a few things! On arrival we discovered that that night was the big backpacker pub crawl. Still feeling hungover from Brisbane the night before we reluctantly agreed to go thinking we could just sleep the whole of the next day. We headed out at 10pm after being kitted with school ties and glow sticks (I felt 15 again!). We met up with 200 other backpackers from about 8 different hostels and set off. I felt like a school teacher - they were all young teenagers smashed out of their faces. The only solution was to try and get as drunk as them to get through it!! First stop was Melbas Bar. Got chatting to some nice aussie boys from Perth who were on holiday. I love their voices! Next stop on the school trip was Cocktails & Dreams - brought back memories from Zante last year!! Danced in there whilst trying to avoid the smelliest man I have ever come across - he kept clearing the dance floor! Why don't people wash?!!! The last stop was Bedroom Bar. Whilst waiting in the queue a teenage boy got chatting to Suzanne and when he found out her age he cracked up and called her a MILF in front of everyone!!!!!!!!!! It was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. For those of you that don't know what a MILF is - watch American Pie or ask someone who has!!! Absolute classic, I almost couldn't breathe I was laughing so much! Bedroom Bar was quite good, I found myself laying on a bed and chatting to random people, one of whom was the spitting image of Ross from Friends. Check the picture out!

The next day we had a well deserved lay in and then wandered around the shops and headed to the beach. Our primary aim was to get a good spot and check out the surf dudes but there wasn't much of that happening so I took to reading my book. The sun was shining and it was warm but the wind was just a bit too chilly to enjoy it so we gave up and headed home! We had a nice chilled out evening at the hostel cooking dinner and watching a film in the cinema room and then I spent the rest of the evening trying to perfect my packing technique which is becoming increasingly more difficult now that I'm having to buy clothes for colder weather! Sis - if the backpack splits I'll buy you another one :o)

On our last day we excitedly got up early and headed to Dreamworld - the best theme park in Surfers Paradise. It was great! I got almost as excited as when I went to Tokyo Disney. The rides were loads better. Nothing usually scares me but I did get scared here. We went on one ride called "The Giant Drop". It was 120 metres high. We got to the top and we were left hanging there for over 30 seconds - it was a lifetime. I was sitting there, scared to look down but couldn't help noticing the car park full of cars that looked like tiny dots. My hands were sweating and I didn't know what to do and then all of a sudden we just dropped the whole way down. I have never screamed so much. It was so fast. I left my stomach up in the sky somewhere. By the time we got to the bottom I was loving it and couldn't wait to get on it again!! Suz had doubts at first, after going on a kids ride and nearly being sick when she got off, but some little kids who were in the queue behind us convinced her that it was ok and she didn't want to lose face so she gave in but she loved it too!!! The Big Brother house is situated in the park so we went to have a look at that too and saw the editors doing their stuff. When the show isn't being filmed you can go into the house and have a proper look but obviously we couldn't as it's already been on a month here.

Later that evening we had planned to go out and meet Doug - who I shared a room with in Laos, the Canadian boy - who has been working at Eagle Boys Pizza in Surfers Paradise but his shift didn't finish until 4am so we decided to give that a miss! The Scottish cook at our hostel also tried to convince us to go out as it was his last night in Australia but we resisted due to budget constraints. There's too much temptation everywhere! Suz and I ended up watching American Pie 2 in the hostel cinema which was quite funny after her MILF comment a few days before!!

The next morning we had to get up early for our 8.20am bus down to Byron Bay. I was sad to leave our dream hostel but looking forward to Byron. We arrived at 10am and quickly found a hostel. This time our dorm mate was a guy called Andy from Darlington who is 24 - someone a bit older for a change! I think we turned him into a girl. He told us about his girlfriend that he left at home and we got excited and started asking him loads of questions about her and then he got pictures out. I think we got a bit carried away when we asked him if she was "The One" as he got embarrassed and said it was all too girly for him and he went outside and found some boys to hang and play cards with!!

That evening, after some goon drinking in our dorm we headed excitedly to Cheeky Monkeys. We'd heard a lot about it from various people on our way down. We bumped straight into Thomas who we shared a dorm with in Cape Trib nearly 4 weeks ago. So random! Within about 10 mins I somehow managed to get roped into taking part in a game on the stage. The DJ was looking for contestants and, thinking I wasn't drunk enough to take part in whatever it was, I tried to hide which clearly drew attention to me even more and he shouted out "you in the black dress, get up here". Oh nooooo!!!! I joined the other 5 people on the stage and then the DJ explained that he would shout out something that we each had to run and get and bring back to the stage and the last one back was out. After hearing that the prize was a $600 trip to Fraser Island and Noosa (which I was already working out how much I could sell it on for!) I decided to take this very seriously and give it my best shot. We got ready and the first thing I had to get was an empty champagne glass. I shot over to the girls where I knew I'd left my empty glass and shot back. Round one - passed! Round two was to get a short straw so I jumped off the stage (cursing myself for wearing a short dress) and headed to the bar and got back in good time. Round two - passed! I was feeling pretty confident by this point as the boys were all really slow. Round three was to get a boy's t-shirt. Hmmm, this was starting to get more tricky but luckily some young boy at the front was all too willing to strip for me and had his off so fast I barely had to move from the stage. Round three - passed!!! Round four - we were all nervously waiting to hear what the next item would be and the DJ shouted out "bra"!! I suddenly looked to the back of the crowd where I saw Sarah and Suz frantically trying to yank off their bras. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. I jumped through the crowd and Deaks managed to get hers (which was actually Suzanne's!) off first so I shot back and only just made it. Round four - passed! This saw me in the final. The winning prize was in my grasp and the pressure was all getting too much!!!! The last thing was to get a Cheeky Monkeys staff t-shirt. I couldn't find a staff member quick enough and by the time I did I couldn't get his t-shirt off quick enough and the other girl just beat me to it!!!! Good effort but disappointing to lose in the final!!!! Very funny though.

We spent the rest of the night dancing away on the tables to cheesy music. Was brilliant and probably the most exercise I've had in a while! We bumped into the Welsh boys that we shared a dorm with in Hervey Bay. It was like the east coast reunion bar!

The next day we had booked to go on a day trip to Nimbin. We headed off, feeling v hungover, at 10am and stopped at a bottle shop to get alcohol. This was the last thing I could face that early in the morning and Deaks and I only managed to get one alcopop bottle whilst Boozanne got 4!! We headed off and stopped at Minyon Falls. I had planned to get in but wasn't feeling too great and it was cold and I didn't fancy spending the rest of the day freezing. Only 2 boys out of the whole group were brave enough. After that we stopped for a BBQ lunch at Rocky Creek Dam. Next we headed to a hippy market. It was so random and full of weirdos! We walked around but the only thing we brought was some fudge!! After that we made our way to Nimbin. It is a tiny little town with a population of 500 and there's loads of hippies just sitting on the street offering you weed and cookies. It was one of the most random places I've ever been. A unique experience to say the least!

We got home around 6.30pm and despite feeling knackered we had planned to go out again that night but, after laying on our beds to "rest our eyes" we woke up at 9.30pm!! Still needing to have showers and wash hair it was all too much and after Andy informed us that there wasn't much going on we decided to give it a miss so we just headed out to try and find something to eat as the hostel kitchen was closed. The only thing open was Legends Pizza which was painful considering I'm still on a pizza ban - 7 weeks today and counting! Deaks was kind enough to try some to see if it was good enough to break the ban with but it wasn't so I'm still waiting :o(

We had to check out of our rooms at 10am this morning but our Greyhound bus to Port Macquarie isn't until 10pm so we decided to make full use of today and headed on a 3 hour trek to Australia's most easterly point and back. It was knackering but good fun. Part of it was on the beach and the tide was really far in so we had to keep waiting for it to fall back so we could run around the rocks before getting soaked. After the easterly point we walked to the lighthouse where we saw the most amazing rainbow. The rain hadn't reached us yet and we stood there admiring it and we met some aussie guys who were trying to get us to do handgliding when the rain suddenly arrived and there was nowhere to run for cover. Thankfully the nice men let us sit in their van whilst we waited for it to stop! Everyone here is so nice!

After that we headed back for some lunch and that leads to me now! We are planning on another cinema visit tonight to kill time before our bus leaves. Good old chick flick!

Next stop is Port Macquarie where we are going to live on a farm for a week!

xxx

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